We are participating in an ISKO conference (InternationalSociety for Knowledge Organization). Here the termKnowledge Organization(KO) is being used.

Sometimes, however, the terminformation organization(IO) is being used. This is the case, for example, inSvenonius’ well known monograph (2000)The intellectualfoundation of information organization. Also, for example,at the School of Information Studies at the University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee the name of the subject hasrecently changed from KO to IO.

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1. Introduction

We may therefore ask:

IsKnowledge Organization = Information Organization?

Are KO and IO synonyms?

In addressing this issue, my aim is twofold:

1) to argue which term should be preferred as label.

2) To provide a theoretical basis for answering the generalquestion:When should two concepts be consideredsynonyms?

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2. Etymology and conceptual analysis?

Intuitively one might perhaps respond: The word”knowledge” and the word ”information” are two differentwords with different meanings. For this reason KO and IOcannot be synonyms.

We might look up the meanings of the words “knowledge”and “information” in dictionaries, encyclopedias (or the hardway: studying the theoretical literature on each concept).

There has been (and may still be somewhere) a belief thatthe true meaning of terms may be found by studying theiroriginal meaning (i.e., their etymology) or in their inherent(a priori) meaning.

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2. Etymology and conceptual analysis?

Today the etymological method of establishing the meaningof terms is generally seen as problematic. Users oflanguage are not necessarily committed by the origin of aword or how it has formerly been used. Scientific termschange meaning with scientific theories. Basic physicalconcepts, for example, do not have the same meaning inthe physics of Aristotle and Newton.

Conceptual analysis also seems to be an insufficientmethod because the meaning ofterms changeswithscientifictheories.

We cannot, therefore, expect to find the true meanings ofthe words “knowledge” and “information” by etymological orby a priory philosophical analysis. We have to considertheir meaning in relation to the scientific theories of whichthey form parts.

What kind of theoretical role do the concepts of knowledgeand information play in library and information science andin KO?

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3. ”Information” and ”knowledge” inLIS

I have been writing about the concept of information in LISfor a long time and cannot go deep into this issue here. Theterm came into LIS with the computer, but has in myopinion never been theoretically well supported. IagreewithFurner(2004) that we could very well have“Informationstudies withoutinformation”!

Often our concepts seem unfortunately to reflect whatKonrad

(2007)termed“poor terminological hygiene”.

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3. ”information” and ”knowledge” inLIS

Zins

(2006) suggested “Redefining information science:From information science to knowledge science”. Thatwould indeed point to KO instead of IO as the preferredname for our field. I do not think it would be wise to followZins

suggestion because:

1.The terminology is confused enough already;

2.There are already other disciplines devoted to the studyof knowledge (e.g. “theory of knowledge”, sociology ofknowledge and “science studies”).

Wittgenstein defined the meaning of terms as their use: Inorder to define a term you must study how it is used. I havemade a study in the SocialSciSearch

of four terms:

•

Information organization (IO),

•

Organization of information (OI),

•

Information architecture (IA) and

•

Knowledge organization (KO)

Each

term

studied

both

in

the

whole

database

and

in

the

part

limited

to

LIS.

For

each

term

and

each

database

were

ranked

1)

the

most

cited

authors

2)

the

most

cited

journals

or

works

and

3)

the

most

cited

references.

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4. Consistent patterns of use?

Knowledge Organization,KO

In whole SSCI

Mostcitedauthors

Rank #1

HJORLAND B

DAHLBERG I

BEGHTOL C

CHIMTH(cognitive science)

KOGUTB

(knowledge

management)

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KnowledgeOrganization

inLIS

Most citedauthors

Rank #13

HJORLAND B

DAHLBERG I

BEGHTOL C

RANGANATHANSR

SOERGEL D

4. Consistent patterns of use?

Information Organization,IO

In whole SSCI

Mostcitedauthors

Rank #4

MILLERGA(cognitive science)

SVENONIUS E

BADDELEYA(cognitivesci)

PORTERME(management)

ZANDDE(management)

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InformationOrganization,IO

In LIS

Rank #16

SVENONIUS E

BELKINNJ(LIS not KO)

CHOOCW(knowledge management)

INGWERSENP(LIS not KO)

TAYLORAG

4. Consistent patterns of use?

Organization of Information,OI

In whole SSCI

Mostcitedauthors

Rank #7

DUNCANJ(cognitive science)

WILLIAMSONOE(economics)

ALCHIANAA(economics)

POSNERMI(cognitive science)

KAHNEMAN D(cognitivescience)

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Organization ofInformation, OI

In LIS

Rank #19

CASE DO(Information seeking)

DAVENPORTTH(knowledge management)

FIDEL R

KWASNIK BH

PATTONMQ(evaluation research)

4. Consistent patterns of use?

InformationArchitecture,AI

In whole SSCI

Most citedauthors

Rank #10

ROSENFELD L

NIELSEN J

BRANCHEAU JC

WURMAN RS

MARCHIONINI G

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13

InformationArchitecture

In LIS

Rank #22

ROSENFELDL

NIELSENJ

BRANCHEAU JC

DILLON A

MARCHIONINI G

5. Interpretation

Eachof the four concepts has a unique set of most citedauthorsseeminglyindicating that we are dealing with fourseparatefields(which of course change if more than justthe top fiveareconsidered; data not shown),

Two of the terms (KO and IA) seem to be reasonablyconsistently used: in LIS both terms display a list ofconnected researchers, in social sciences the term KO isalso usedbyresearchers fromcognitive science andknowledgemanagement, but with LIS as the dominantfield.

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5. Interpretation

The other two terms (IO and OI) are clearly notconsistently used to delimit a common field.Svenonius

(2000) and the well-known textbookTaylor&Joudrey

(2009) are

clearly the publications that associate IO withour field, but the terms are used by other fields as well andno consistent pattern is visible

(remark that another textbook,Rowley.&Hartley(2008)Organizing knowledge. An introduction tomanaging access toinformation

tries to have it all by combiningknowledge and information in the title).

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5. Interpretation

Why do some researchers prefer IO to KO? There seemsto be no well-argued theoretical reason to do so.Svenonius

(2000)is clearly a book in the tradition of KO.

Does KO sound old-fashioned? Is that term moreconnected to print culture than to the digital world?Or is it,as Webber(2003) suggests, more a strategic choice madein order to “sell” the field than it is based on theoreticalarguments?

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5. Interpretation

Is information architecture (IA) a new field? An emergingdiscipline?

Or is IA just a new name for the field covered by KO?

A course in IA (or a book about IA) is clearly focused oninternet technologies, which is to day an important focus.The influential text (Rosenfeld&Morville, 1998;Morville

&Rosenfeld, 2006) is a good one, also from the perspectiveof KO.

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5. Interpretation

The decision to use the new term IA may be motivated:

To signal something new and cool

To have a term/field delimited to KO on the Internet

To have a term for a community different from our KOcommunity

Disciplines should be defined theoretically, not bypersuasive terminology just as basic principles should beindependent of media (print or Internet).

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5. Interpretation

My suggestion is therefore that KO is the field thatprovides the basic principles also forIA (although cleverpeople identifying themselves with IA also contribute tothese basic principles).

KOand IA should certainly notbe considered two differentfields/disciplines because the basic principles have to bethe same. We should not have separate courses in KOand IA, but courses in KO covering different theoreticalapproaches and different kinds of media and technologies.

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6. Conclusion

The choice of the name for the field is not just an empiricalquestion. Empirical studies can tell the uses of the terms,whether there is a consistent pattern in the use of a givenlabel.

To choose a label is also to work for developing the field ina certain direction. It concerns basic theoretical analyses.

There is a need to connect KO more to other knowledgefields such as the theory of knowledge, the sociology ofknowledge/science and science studies.

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6. Conclusion

Therefore, my conclusion is that KO should be thepreferred term.



However, if the tendency to shift to IO continues, I wouldhave to follow the trend: One cannot isolate oneself andone cannot maintain a private language that nobody elseuses.